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Braves Announce NLDS Roster

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Although the Mets were atop the NL East for the vast majority of the season, Atlanta charged hard down the stretch and surged past them (via a tiebreaker). They earned their fifth consecutive division crown and also earned a bye past the Wild Card round under this year’s new expanded playoff format. They will now square off against a divisional rival, facing the Phillies in the NLDS. The roster for the series is as follows…

Right-Handed Pitchers

Left-Handed Pitchers

Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders

The most notable name on the list is Strider, as his status was uncertain for the series. His last appearance was September 18, after which he went on the injured list due to a left oblique strain. It seems there’s a chance he could return in the next week, based on his placement on this roster. Jeff Schultz of The Athletic relays word from manager Brian Snitker that the club hasn’t yet decided on a Game 3 starter, with Strider and Morton both under consideration. Yesterday, Mark Bowman of MLB.com said that the club was leaning towards Wright for Game 2.

Prior to landing on the injured list, Strider was enjoying a spectacular rookie season. He started in the bullpen but eventually made his way into the rotation and dominated the whole way. He threw 131 2/3 innings with a 2.67 ERA, 40.3% ground ball rate, 8.5% walk rate and an absurd 38.3% strikeout rate. The club was so impressed that they gave him a six-year, $75MM extension, announced just yesterday.

What role he can play in this series is something that is still to be determined. He is throwing a bullpen today and won’t be an option for relief work in Game 1, per Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. How his body responds to today’s session will likely determine how the club proceeds with regards to Strider’s workload.

As for who is not on the list, the most noteworthy omission is that of Tyler Matzek. Toscano relays that Matzek felt some elbow discomfort recently and is being evaluated in Texas. The southpaw was a key component of the club’s World Series run last year, throwing 15 2/3 innings in the postseason with a 1.72 ERA. In the regular season this year, he posted a 3.50 ERA over 43 2/3 innings. The fact that he’s been left off this roster suggests the club isn’t expecting him back in short order, though he could return to the club down the line if he gets good news in Texas and the club stays alive.

Braves Activate Eddie Rosario, Tyler Matzek

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The Braves have activated two of the key figures from last year’s World Series run, outfielder Eddie Rosario and left-hander Tyler Matzek, from the injured list, the team announced today. To make room on the active roster, the club optioned infielder Mike Ford to Triple-A Gwinnett and designated right-hander Silvino Bracho for assignment.

While the Braves have been one of the hottest teams in baseball of late, Rosario’s and Matzek’s performances to open the season seemed to be emblematic of a bit of a championship hangover for an Atlanta squad that limped out of the gate. Both players’ issues proved the result of injuries, however: Rosario’s swelling in his right retina that required laser surgery and Matzek’s left shoulder inflammation that led to a significant drop in velocity.

Indeed, each will be looking to improve on rather unsightly lines, particularly by their recently elevated standards. In 49 trips to the plate in April, Rosario slashed an anemic .068/.163/.091 — good for a -24 wRC+ — before hitting the IL, while Matzek had seen his ERA climb from 2.57 last year to 5.06 through his first 10 2/3 innings this year that included an alarming dip in his strikeout rate (from 29.2% in 2021 to 21.3% in 2022) and an alarming spike in his walk rate (from 14% to 19.2%).

Should each return in top form, the already red-hot Braves — 23-7 since June 1st — could reach another gear in what figures to be a stellar race in the NL East. Matzek should slide back into a bullpen that leads the majors with 4.7 fWAR with little issue, but Rosario’s return could lead to something of a logjam in the outfield. When healthy, Ronald Acuña Jr. is the first name on Brian Snitker’s lineup card, and Michael Harris II has been a revelation in center field since a late-May call-up. Adam Duvall, who left Saturday’s game in Cincinnati after taking a pitch off the hand, has seen the bulk of the at-bats in left since Harris’ arrival, and Marcell Ozuna has primarily slotted in at DH, playing in left only on an as-needed basis.

Neither Duvall nor Ozuna has gotten off to a particularly hot start, however. Ozuna, who’s slashing .227/.280/.420, has hit for power and little else, while Duvall, who’s slashing a meager .205/.272/.376, has provided much-needed defensive versatility but has yet to show the level of power that’s been his calling card in the past. Too much talent vying for too few at-bats is a good problem to have, of course, but Snitker may have to get creative to get everyone in the lineup on a regular basis.

Ford, who logged only a walk in five trips to the plate since the Braves claimed him from the Mariners a few weeks ago, will return to the minors as organizational depth. If he clears waivers, Bracho, who covered a single scoreless inning in his stint with Atlanta, will likely do the same. Ford has logged a .194/.306/.395 career batting line in parts of four minor league seasons with the Yankees, Giants, Mariners, and Braves. Bracho, who had pitched in five prior seasons with the Diamondbacks, owns a career 4.76 ERA in 90 2/3 innings across 93 appearances.

Injury Notes: Perez, Matzek, McCann

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The Royals placed Salvador Pérez on the 10-day injured list between games of today’s doubleheader with the White Sox. Pérez suffered a sprained left thumb during the opening contest, and Kansas City quickly moved to replace him with Sebastian Rivero on the active roster. Kansas City’s franchise backstop is off to a slow start, much like the rest of the lineup. Pérez is hitting .206/.239/.397 through 34 games. He’s popped six home runs but drawn only four walks with 38 strikeouts, contributing to one of the lowest on-base marks in the big leagues.

While Pérez is out of action, the Royals will get their first extended look at rookie MJ Melendez behind the plate. The 23-year-old backstop led all minor league players with 41 home runs last season, combining for a .286/.386/.625 line between Double-A Northwest Arkansas and Triple-A Omaha. That’s obviously elite production for any player, let alone a catcher, and Melendez is now regarded as one of the sport’s most promising prospects. He was recalled for his first MLB promotion at the beginning of the month and will take the majority of the catching time while Pérez is on the shelf.

The latest on a couple other injury situations around the league:

  • The Braves placed reliever Tyler Matzek on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to May 14, due to inflammation in his throwing shoulder. That’s an ominous-sounding diagnosis, but an MRI this afternoon revealed no structural damage (relayed by Mark Bowman of MLB.com). Matzek will nevertheless be shut down from throwing for a couple weeks, indicating he’s likely to require a minor league rehab assignment even if he’s deemed alright to get back to action upon his next reevaluation. Matzek posted a 2.57 ERA in 63 innings for the World Series champions last season. He’s battled significant control woes in the early going this year, doling out nine walks among his 47 batters faced.
  • Mets catcher James McCann underwent successful left hamate surgery this morning, manager Buck Showalter informed reporters (including Anthony DiComo of MLB.com). The team announced last Friday that he’d require a procedure after being diagnosed with a fracture, projecting a recovery timeline of approximately six weeks. McCann, who signed a four-year deal over the 2020-21 offseason, hit .232/.294/.349 during his first season in Queens. He’s off to a slow start this season, hitting .196/.266/.286 through 21 contests. New York is relying on a Tomás Nido – Patrick Mazeika pairing in McCann’s absence.

Pitching Notes: Scherzer, Matzek, Schmidt

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A dead arm kept Max Scherzer from pitching in Game Six of the NLDS, which Scherzer believes was due to pitching fewer innings in the lead-up to the postseason.  However, as the ace right-hander told Jorge Castillo of The Los Angeles Times, Scherzer doesn’t hold the Dodgers at fault for the situation, nor was the postseason a factor in his decision to sign with the Mets rather than return to Chavez Ravine.  The Dodgers tried to limit their starters’ innings in order to keep them fresh for October, and Scherzer went into the playoffs assuming (and he told the club as much) that he was able to keep up the same workload as in 2019, when he helped lead the Nationals to the World Series.  But, he and the Dodgers “never took that variable into consideration” of how pitching less heading into 2021 postseason would impact his arm.

“I bear more brunt of that because of me having those discussions with [manager Dave Roberts] about that, about how I can be used in the postseason and coming up short on that, on my end, of saying I can do something and then it didn’t happen,” Scherzer said.  He also noted that his upcoming free agency didn’t weigh into his scratched start: “It’s literally my arm’s health.  When you can’t throw, you can’t throw….Throwing in Game 6, I would’ve been rolling the dice on sustaining a substantial injury.”

More from other pitchers around the game…

  • Tyler Matzek didn’t appear in a single big league game from 2016-19, as the southpaw found his career all but halted due to control issues and a case of the yips.  It took a long time and a lot of work for Matzek to feel comfortable on and off the field, as The Ringer’s Jordan Ritter Conn details, but Matzek returned to become a strong contributor out of the Braves bullpen over the last two seasons, culminating in his role in Atlanta’s World Series title.  While Matzek’s control issues haven’t entirely gone away (he has a 12.2% walk rate in 2020-21), he has posted a 2.64 ERA and 31.2% strikeout over 92 regular season innings, plus an excellent 1.48 ERA over 24 1/3 postseason frames.
  • One of the Yankees’ more prominent pitching prospects, Clarke Schmidt’s big league career has been limited to 12 2/3 innings, due in large part to an elbow injury that sidelined him for much of 2021.  “It just didn’t respond like we expected it to and it took forever for it to get right,” Schmidt tells The Athletic’s Lindsey Adler about his injury, an extensor strain that Schmidt described as “basically the same thing as tennis elbow.”  Once finally recovered, Schmidt was able to pitch 38 innings of minor league ball and then 6 1/3 innings with the Yankees at the MLB level, and most importantly he says he is feeling healthy heading into the 2022 campaign.  Some adjustments have already been made to his offseason training plan, however, as Schmidt feels that overwork led to last year’s injury.  “I just pushed the gas pedal a little bit too much too early and I learned my lesson,” he said.  It seems like that New York will start Schmidt in Triple-A to give him a bit more seasoning (he has only 25 2/3 innings of Triple-A ball under his belt), but for a Yankees club that can always use pitching depth, Schmidt could be an important arm to watch as the season proceeds.

Quick Hits: Matzek, Braves, Extensions, Mariners

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Tyler Matzek hadn’t thrown a Major League inning since the 2015 season, yet the southpaw has been a huge contributor to the Braves’ 2020 bullpen, posting a 2.79 ERA, 4.30 K/BB rate, and 13.3 K/9 over 29 regular season innings, and adding three shutout innings of work thus far in the playoffs.  Matzek’s five-year absence from the big leagues was marked by a 2017 spent entirely out of baseball, and then a stint pitching for the independent Texas AirHogs in 2018 and 2019 that got his career on track.  As AirHogs general manager Nate Gutierez told Steve Hummer of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about Matzek’s mindset heading to indy ball, “some guys come in defeated….When Tyler came in, we had open and honest conversations with him about where he was, which was a ways away from where he thought he needed to be.”

Some more from around baseball….

  • Matzek’s emergence further strengthen a bullpen that was one of the league’s best in 2020. Also instrumental at the end of games for manager Brian Snitker are Chris Martin and Mark Melancon, a pair of relievers originally acquired around the 2019 trade deadline. Those are among a series of moves the Alex Anthopolous-led front office has made to fortify the pitching staff over the past couple seasons, as Buster Olney of ESPN explores. Even more impactful, perhaps, are potential moves Atlanta didn’t make, as Olney notes that opposing teams tried to buy low on Max Fried and Kyle Wright after they started their careers with somewhat mixed results. To their credit, the Braves obviously stood pat on both pitchers, which has proven especially beneficial in Fried’s case.
  • There’s a widespread industry expectation teams will curtail spending this offseason in the wake of this year’s pandemic-driven revenue losses. That cost consciousness could manifest itself in plenty of extension offers for teams’ top young players, Olney further reports. The early career extension is hardly a new phenomenon; players like Ronald Acuña Jr., Ozzie Albies and Scott Kingery have inked different variations of that type of deal in recent years. Olney expects an uptick in those kinds of offers in the coming months, with teams looking to lock in long-term cost certainty wherever possible. The Acuña and Albies deals demonstrate the massive returns on investment teams can reap when they strike early on the right players.
  • The Mariners will have some decisions to make in advance of this offseason’s deadline to protect players from the Rule V draft, as Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times explores. Taylor Trammell, Juan Then and Sam Delaplane are obviously going to be protected, Divish feels, but reliever Wyatt Mills and corner infielder Joe Rizzo present tougher calls. One other key roster decision will involve right-hander Kendall Graveman’s $3.5MM club option, Divish notes. The 29-year-old’s overall season numbers weren’t particularly impressive, but Graveman seemingly found another gear working out of the bullpen down the stretch.

Braves Select Matt Adams, Outright Yonder Alonso

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The Braves announced Thursday that they’ve selected the contract of veteran first baseman Matt Adams and outrighted fellow veteran Yonder Alonso off the 40-man roster. Alonso has the service time to reject that outright assignment, though it’s not yet clear he’ll do so. Atlanta also included southpaw Tyler Matzek on its Opening Day roster, which means his contract has been selected to the 40-man roster as well.

Atlanta only just added Alonso to the 40-man roster this past weekend, though they hadn’t yet worked out a deal to bring Adams into the organization at that point. With Adams now on board, the club clearly views him as a better option to back up Freddie Freeman. Freeman has previously missed time due to Covid-19 but was cleared to return and included on the Braves’ Opening Day roster. The 31-year-old Adams hit .226/.276/.465 with 20 homers in 333 plate appearances for the division-rival Nationals a year ago, but also had a productive run with the Braves in 2017.

Matzek, 29, represents a fairly remarkable comeback story. The southpaw was the No. 11 overall pick by the Rockies back in 2009 and for a few years was considered to be one of the game’s premier pitching prospects. Injuries and poor performances caused him to fade from the radar, and he was out of baseball entirely in 2017 before latching on with the Texas AirHogs of the independent American Assocation in 2018-19. He parlayed that into a look with the Braves and struggled in 15 minor league innings, but his summer showing helped him to land a spot on an MLB roster for the first time since 2015.

Pitching Notes: Félix, Matzek, Abreu, Tigers’ Bullpen

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David O’Brien of The Athletic (subscription link) spoke to Félix Hernández, who appears poised to crack Atlanta’s rotation to start the year. With his 34th birthday coming up on April 8th, the Braves righty is aware that success on the hill will look much different than it did as a youngster. “Command all the corners. Command of my fastball and a good breaking ball, and with my changeup, I think I’m going to be fine,” said Hernandez, who acknowledges he has lost velocity from his younger days. The key now, according to Hernandez, is to “control all my pitches, mix my changeup, breaking ball, sliders and my two-seamer, I’ll be fine.”

Hernández is hoping to follow in the footsteps of Aníbal Sánchez, who signed a minor-league pact with Atlanta ahead of his age-34 season. Sanchez didn’t make the Opening Day squad that year (2018). However, he did have his contract selected a few days later and wind up throwing 136 2/3 innings of 2.83 ERA ball for the Braves, before going on to sign a two-year, $19MM contract with the Nationals and helping them win the 2019 World Series. Hernández has a 1.98 ERA through 13 2/3 innings this spring, which the Braves hope is the beginning of a similar renaissance. King Felix is coming off a great overall run in Seattle, but his ERA climbed for five consecutive seasons, finally landing at 6.40 in 2019.

With just over two weeks until Opening Day, more roster decisions are just over the horizon. Here are some noteworthy details…

  • Mark Bowman of MLB.com spoke to Tyler Matzek, who is attempting a comeback after some time in the proverbial wilderness. The 29-year-old lefty is a former first-round pick of the Rockies, having been selected 11th overall in 2009. After climbing the ranks and making his MLB debut in 2014, things went downhill for him because of what Bowman calls “the yips.” (For those unfamiliar, “the yips” is a slang term for a pitcher’s sudden inability to throw strikes, usually chalked up to psychological causes.) Speaking about his struggles, Matzek said, “When you’re throwing it behind hitters and have no idea where the ball is going as a lefty, that’s usually a pretty good indicator something is wrong.” Matzek, who spent parts of the past two seasons pitching for the unaffiliated Texas AirHogs, is in Braves camp and opening some eyes with his spring appearances, including striking out Red Sox stars Rafael Devers and J.D. Martinez. Bowman notes that it’s unlikely Matzek will end up on the Opening Day roster, but he could be a name to watch going forward. On a personal level, though, it seems like it’s already a triumphant comeback tale for Matzek. “The game was taken away from me for a little while,” he said. “I’m just happy to be back and have the chance to compete at any level.”
  • The Astros are looking for answers after the recent news that it will “take a miracle“ for Justin Verlander to be ready by Opening Day. One of those answers could come in the form of right-hander Bryan Abreu, according to Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle. Abreu, who will turn 23 on April 22nd, made his MLB debut in 2019, coming out of the bullpen in seven games and compiling 13 Ks over 8 2/3 innings with an ERA of 1.04. Even with Verlander’s injury, Abreu seems to be a long shot to wind up in the rotation. Pitching coach Brent Strom lists Austin Pruitt, Framber Valdez and Josh James as candidates to fill in behind Zack Greinke, Lance McCullers Jr. and Jose Urquidy, but he also has a fondness for Abreu. Strom indicated that he expects Abreu to be “a big-time starter at the big league level for a number of years,” though he also acknowledges the hurler could be present on Opening Day as a member of the bullpen.
  • Chris McCosky of The Detroit News pegs right-hander Jose Cisnero and left-hander Gregory Soto as potential difference-makers in the Tigers’ bullpen. Manager Ron Gardenhire seems pleased that Cisnero’s fastball reached 97 mph on Tuesday. “That’s the first time we’ve seen him get up to mid-90s,” Gardenhire said. “He’d been 91-92 and we were getting a little concerned.” As for Soto, he hit 100 mph on the gun three times during the same game, impressing pitching coach Rick Anderson. “That was fun to watch,” he said. The Tigers have a lot of uncertainty in their bullpen, even after naming Joe Jimenez the closer Tuesday. Having a couple of fireballing relievers take a step forward would be a welcome addition to a squad that mustered only 47 victories in 2019.

Minor MLB Transactions: 8/27/19

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Here are the latest minor moves from around baseball (unless otherwise specified, reports come from Kegan Lowe of Baseball America):

  • The White Sox have released outfielder Paulo Orlando, who had been with the organization since it acquired him from the Dodgers on May 10. The 33-year-old Orlando didn’t produce much with the White Sox’s Triple-A team in Charlotte, as he hit just .242/.299/.426 with 10 home runs in 284 plate appearances. Orlando’s best known for his 2015-18 stint as a member of the Royals, with whom he batted .263/.289/.384 and totaled 14 HRs across 918 trips to the plate.
  • The Diamondbacks released left-handed reliever Marc Rzepczynski over the weekend, per the Pacific Coast League’s transactions page. The D-backs have now waved goodbye to “Scrabble” twice this season – they cut the 33-year-old at the end of May, only to re-sign him a few weeks later. Rzepczynski has spent the year with their Triple-A affiliate in Reno, where he has pitched to a 5.04 ERA/6.25 FIP with 7.25 K/9, 5.64 BB/9 and a 53.8 percent groundball rate in 44 2/3 innings.
  • The Braves recently signed lefty Tyler Matzek, who was previously with the Texas Airhogs of the independent American Association. Matzek’s a decade removed from going to the Rockies 11th overall in the 2009 draft, but it’s fair to say the once-hyped hurler hasn’t lived up to the promise he had as a prospect. While Matzek was relatively successful with the Rockies from 2014-15 – a 139 2/3-inning run in which he recorded a 4.06 ERA/4.12 FIP despite unimpressive strikeout and walk rates (6.83 K/9, 4.06 BB/9) – he hasn’t pitched in the majors since then. The control-challenged 28-year-old owns a 5.16 ERA with 8.9 K/9 and 5.6 BB/9 in 83 2/3 frames at the Triple-A level.

Minor MLB Transactions: 1/15/19

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Here are Tuesday’s minor moves from around baseball…

  • Former Yankees top prospect Slade Heathcott is retiring from the game, Heathcott himself announced this week (hat tip: Mark W. Sanchez of the New York Post). Now 28 years of age, Heathcott was the No. 29 selection in the 2009 draft and rated as the game’s No. 63 overall prospect, per Baseball America, in the 2012-13 offseason. However, after tearing through the lower ranks of the minor leagues, Heathcott began to struggle in Double-A and never found great success there or in Triple-A. He did have a strong 17-game cameo with the Yankees in 2015, during which he went 10-for-25 with a pair of homers and a pair of doubles. Heathcott split last season between the Athletics organization and the independent Sugar Land Skeeters, but he tweeted this week that he’s moving on from baseball in pursuit of his commercial pilot’s license.
  • Left-hander Tyler Matzek has agreed to a minor league contract with the Diamondbacks, tweets Robert Murray of The Athletic. Once the No. 11 overall pick in the draft  (2009, Rockies), Matzek was considered one of the game’s premier pitching prospects at one point but has persistently battled control problems throughout his pro career. Matzek has a 4.06 ERA with 6.8 K/9 against 4.1 BB/9 in 139 2/3 big league innings, but he’s averaged 6.5 walks per nine innings in parts of seven minor league seasons. Matzek hasn’t pitched in the Majors since 2015 and spent the 2018 season with the Texas AirHogs of the independent American Association, where his control troubles continued. In 88 2/3 innings, Matzek logged a 5.89 ERA with 93 strikeouts but 66 walks and 10 hit batters.
  • The Twins have signed right-hander Jeff Ames to a minor league contract, MLBTR has learned. Ames, 28 at the end of the month, hasn’t cracked the big leagues and had mixed results between Double-A and Triple-A with the Brewers and Nats last season. He’s averaged better than 11 strikeouts per nine innings pitched across the past two seasons but has also averaged more than five walks per nine in that time. Ames has a 4.50 ERA in 64 career innings at the Triple-A level and a 2.66 ERA in 125 frames of Double-A ball. Though he’s been an extreme fly-ball pitcher throughout his minor league career, Ames hasn’t struggled with home runs much outside of the 2018 campaign, when he surrendered six big flies in 38 total innings of relief (1.42 HR/9).

Minor MLB Transactions: 2/15/18

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Here are the latest minor moves from around the game:

  • The Mets announced today that they have signed Matt den Dekker to a minor-league deal. He’ll be reunited with the organization that originally drafted him in the fifth round in 2010 and gave him his first MLB promotion in 2013. Though he has touched the majors in each of the past five seasons, opportunities have been fleeting for the 30-year-old. He spent most of 2017 at Triple-A with the Tigers and Marlins organizations, slashing a combined .250/.322/.441 in 288 plate appearances.
  • Lefty Tyler Matzek has signed a minors deal with the Mariners, per an announcement from the California Winter League. It includes an invitation to MLB Spring Training. Once a top prospect, Matzek had been unable to overcome anxiety problems and a related collapse in his control. Though he worked to a 4.05 ERA in 117 2/3 MLB frames in 2014, Matzek issued more walks than strikeouts at all levels over the following two seasons. He was released by the White Sox after participating in camp with the organization last spring.
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